Forum for Industrial Interoperability

With support from:

Background

A transition to digital production is currently underway, which creates many opportunities for Swedish industry. Sweden intends to become a leading nation in the digitization of production. Through digitization, Swedish companies can create more efficient, flexible and sustainable manufacturing processes and thus strengthen their competitiveness. Smart products and services in digitalization can also create great export opportunities for Swedish companies. The technical development in digitization in production is very fast. This applies to everything from sensors to machines, software and system solutions. It is estimated that smart connected industrial products by 2030 will increase the global economy's turnover by 14.2 trillion USD.

To support interoperability, integration and communication, there are many available standards and a lot of work on standardization within many different groupings. Standardization plays a significant role in being able to use digitization both for internal production processes in collaboration with external parties. Increased flexibility and interoperability between organization, functions, and systems are important driving forces, and at the same time enable more long-term stability when investing in digitization – as developers as well as users.

Challenges

One of the many challenges to deal with in digitalization is how manufacturing companies should relate to the ongoing development of standards for interoperability and interconnection of machines and systems. Smart production requires that a plethora of technical solutions can work together. Lack of effective collaboration is often a bottleneck that hinders effective practical implementation in industry. For small and medium-sized Swedish manufacturing companies, navigating a comprehensive landscape of standards for industrial ecosystems is a major challenge. Knowledge of relevant standards is one of several keys for Swedish manufacturing companies to increase their competitiveness in an increasingly digitalized business landscape.

Purpose and results

The purpose of the forum is to gather actors from Swedish industry in a network that can provide practical support in understanding and navigating among standards and standardization work for smart production. The actors must consist of experts in standards, as well as manufacturers and users of digitized equipment for production. In 2021, the project will offer industry workshops, seminars, coaching and a conference. The goal is to increase Swedish industry's ability to exploit the opportunities that digitalization and standards for smart manufacturing create. Within the forum, knowledge and experiences are disseminated in a joint discussion where standard development can be a valuable consequence, with a greater commitment to international standardization work. The network enables Swedish actors to develop their customer competence for digital industry, and enables the Swedish actors' insight into how they can influence future standardization development work. Once the network has been established and found a suitable form of activity, the forum will be able to work long-term and strategically to increase the Swedish industry's knowledge and commitment to standard development and thus increase its competitiveness in an international market. This is expected to take place through four steps: (1) establishment of networks, (2) knowledge and network building, (3) national commitment and ability, (4) international commitment and competitiveness.

At the end of the project in December 2021, the project will have made a positive contribution to the network actors' development of knowledge and ability to take advantage of the opportunities of digitalization in industry through strategic navigation in interoperability. An important goal of the project is also to develop a method for navigating among standards, which provides guidelines for strategic application of standards, an overview of standard areas, relevant organizations, expertise and support available.

The project consortium's ambition is to find a sustainable business model that enables the business to be complied with even after the financing from Vinnova ends.

Project partners

- PMH Application Lab
-
- Automation Region
- Swedish Institute for Standards
- Lund University
- RISE
- Vinnova